That's Grace Podcast

Sometimes it's the people closest to us that we struggle to get along with the most. Maybe it's because they are the people we spend the most time with, see the worst of, and can get away from least. All of us would say we want to have healthier relationships with our family, but sometimes, it's hard to imagine how to even begin that process. Because our families have broken people just like us, it's not wonder we find them in conflict. In the first week of our series, we look at what the Bible has to say about our families and focus in on the steps we can take to improve our marriages and our relationships with our kids.

I think most of us would agree that it is a good thing to stay close to God and to intentionally set aside time to hear God's leading, pruning, and guiding in our hearts. That it's good to take a step back in life and lean into what God is trying to tell you. But in the last week of our series, we see what the purpose of staying close to God is! It's not so that we can get more money, be more blessed, or even hear God speaking to our hearts. In fact, tuning our hearts to hear what God wants only matters if we follow through with this one step. And by doing so, we can live lives that are fulfilled in the purpose for which we were created.

When it comes to prayer, many of us are unsure or uncomfortable with how to utilize it in our relationship with God. We say our thoughts and prayers are with others during tough times, but often neglect the "prayer" part. For many of us, talking to God seems intimidating and we believe we have to have eloquent speech and language. And others of us have learned to recite certain prayers since we were kids so much so that we can recite them without even thinking. If prayer is a tool for us to use, then it can only be as effective as our ability to know how to use it. In this week's message, we look at what Jesus had to say about prayer, and how He shows us a template for what to pray for so that we can become more comfortable talking to God.

There are some things in life that require extra focus and attention in order for us to grow in those areas. Passing a difficult exam requires extra studying. Lifting your body weight requires both training and lifestyle changes. And in the same way, there are areas in our spiritual life where God is trying to grow us and prune us, but until we commit to the extra discipline of eliminating noise and creating space for God to show us where to prune, we won't reach that next level of spiritual maturity. In this week's message, we talk about how the Bible indicates that setting aside time for fasting and prayer is a key to allow God to do the pruning necessary in your life so that you can grow. And as a result of this teaching, our church together is dedicating themselves to participate in a 21 day fast with prayer.

Life is often busy. Noisy. Chaotic. Rushed. If you're like most people, you've probably at one time or another looked back and wondered where time went. And if we are not careful, the busyness of life can pull us along and cause us to stay distracted enough to where our relationship with God tends to become stagnant and even begin to wither away. As we begin this series Airplane Mode, we challenge you to begin this new year by taking some time to unplug from the busyness and chaos of life and refocus your relationship with God and begin to hear from Him.

Have you ever received a gift that just blew you away? Something that you weren't necessarily expecting and maybe even something that you didn't deserve. How did you feel when you opened that gift? Around Christmas, we talk a lot about giving and receiving gifts, but what if the best gift you've ever been given was still unopened. What if was there, ready for the taking, and all you had to do was accept it. This Christmas, we talk about the gift that God gave to us, Jesus.  Not a gift that requires a certain performance from us, but a gift that can help fix the most broken parts of our lives that even we can't fix.

While most of us want to live a life defined by joy and contentment, it seems incredibly difficult to obtain and at times almost impossible. Whether it is comparison, outside circumstances, or other people that rob our joy, something always seems to right there threatening to steal away the joy we want. And honestly, for many of us, the biggest reason that we can't find joy is because of the deep, disappointment that we have with ourselves. So how can experiencing joy become easy? How can that be the default reaction we have when bad things come our way. In the third week of this series, Pastor Sean talks about how joy must become a habit in order for it be our default reaction and shows from the Bible how we can get over the self loathing that keeps us stuck.

If you were to list the things that steal your joy what would they be? Many of would say things like money, or the way others treat us, or maybe life not being fair. But in those answers we find a common factor. Our joy is often "stolen" when we are most concerned with the things that affect our lives. When things don't go how we intended, we feel that we have the right to be upset and be joyless. If we're honest, we all want our own way. We all want our lives to be smooth and comfortable and anything that threatens that can easily steal our joy and become the enemy. But what if our self-centeredness is the very thing that is preventing us from having unwavering joy in life. In this week's teaching, we talk about how the way to find continuous joy might be found in choosing to abandon getting our way and instead, have a tender heart towards God and compassionate towards those around us.

We all want to be happy. In fact, we all spend a significant amount of time in pursuit of things that make us feel happy. If we were given a choice everyday on whether to feel happiness or not, most of it would without thinking choose happiness. But it doesn't take long to realize that the brokenness of our world and the brokenness inside of us is at odds with our quest for happiness and at times, the storms of life make it close to impossible to find happiness. In the first week of our series, we take a look at the difference between experiencing joy and happiness and give you three truths that can create the conditions for experiencing joy in your life no matter what the circumstances that surround you.

We spend a lot of time thinking about our lives here in the here and now. Working to reach our next goal, trying to make more money, and gain more happiness. But we often spend very little time thinking about how the lives we are living right now will make a difference after we are gone. While none of is like to think about the end of our lives, none of us want to get there and look back with regrets. What we build our lives around and on makes a difference not only in where we spend the next life but with what and who we will spend it with. In the last week of our series, we look at what the Bible says the foundation of our lives should be and the lessons we can learn to help us leverage the life we have now in preparation for the one to come.